Civil Rights

Last week, we joined together to introduce the bipartisan Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2011.  For almost 18 years, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has been the centerpiece of the federal government’s commitment to combat domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.  We should reauthorize and strengthen these programs. 

Today, December 7, 2011, is the 70th Anniversary of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.  As communities across America remember that day, Representative Peter King (R-N.Y.) seeks the spotlight once again with a Congressional hearing claiming to explore “homegrown terrorism’s threat to military communities inside the United States.” 

I hope real American values and vision drive today’s hearing, not prejudice, hysteria and a failure of leadership.  I hope King honors his position as Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee with a comprehensive review of real dangers to our military communities.  That’s what the American people deserve.

Based on King’s past hearings, however, the American people are justified to fear that King will rely on insidious discrimination targeting Muslim Americans.  If the hearing’s date (Pearl Harbor’s Anniversary) and its subject matter, the 2009 attack at Ft. Hood Texas, are any indication, today’s hearing will go too far by singling out Muslim-American service members as the danger to our military communities. Whatever happens today, let us be clear: Any blanket suggestion that all Muslim American soldiers are the threat is morally and strategically wrong.

Today, the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees are holding a joint hearing on homegrown terrorism on quite an auspicious date. The hearing, titled “Homegrown Terrorism: The Threat to Military Communities Inside the United States,” falls on the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks.

Seventy years ago today, nearly 2,500 Americans were killed in a surprise attack by the Japanese Imperial Navy on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. The next day, Japanese American husbands and fathers were taken from their homes, under FBI escort, to federal detention centers. A few short months later, all Japanese Americans on the West Coast were sent to camps for the duration of the entirety of World War II. 

They were citizens held as prisoners and charged with no crime. Driving their detention was the U.S. government’s fear of homegrown terrorism and its doubt of the loyalties and beliefs of the community—of Japanese American citizens—based on nothing more than race and religion.

Tonight across America, in depressed urban neighborhoods and affluent suburban towns, in rundown public spaces and on Ivy League campuses, women of every race, class, and ethnicity will be sexually assaulted.  

The statistics are devastating: in the United States today a rape occurs on average every two minutes.  Ultimately, 1 in 4 American women will endure this terrible crime in their lifetimes.  

How has our society responded to this epidemic of sexual violence?  Instead of outrage and concerted action, we see ineffectual responses at best and at worst the persistent belief that women are somehow responsible for their own victimization.  

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to hear renowned filmmaker Ken Burns speak as he was promoting his latest documentary, Prohibition.  He discussed why it’s important for Americans to know the reasons behind the rise, reign and fall of this era in American history. 

Specifically, he commented that “We need to understand who we are […]” and ask ourselves, “Where have we been, and where are we going?”  Prohibition is airing again on PBS station WETA-TV here in Washington later this week, days after our country celebrates the anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition.  So there has never been a better time to learn the story behind our ability to legally enjoy licensed beverages (beer, wine and liquor) today.
 
On December 5, 1933, the states ratified the 21st Amendment, ending national Prohibition.  While the 21st Amendment allowed alcohol to be sold legally once again, there is much more to it – not only what the measure did then but what it continues to do today for communities across the country. 

November is National Adoption Month, a time to raise awareness about the adoption of children and youth from foster care. In the U.S. there are over 400,000 children in foster care, of which 107,000 are eligible for adoption and waiting to be placed with a "forever family." Tragically, each year 25,000 youth age-out of foster care having never been adopted.

But we need to do more than be aware of this issue, we need to act.

As the plaintiff in the adoption lawsuit that rendered Florida’s ban on adoption by lesbians and gay men unenforceable, I know first-hand the harm that such policies can cause.  I have been a foster parent to 25 children over the last nine years and have seen the harm that comes to the many kids who don't get adopted.  And with our two sons, I have seen the incredible difference that an adoption can make in the lives of foster children.

Today, instead of working to create jobs, the Congress will consider the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act, H.R. 822.  This bill is special-interest legislation at its worst.  It is opposed by virtually everyone with an interest in protecting public safety—law enforcement, policy experts, and state and local governments.  But it will appease the National Rifle Association, at least briefly, and so the Majority will bring it to the floor.

Under the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act, a concealed firearm permit issued by any state would be valid in every state that allows concealed carry.  If it passes, a visitor to my home state of Michigan would be allowed to carry a loaded, hidden weapon in public, even if he has not met the minimum requirements to do so mandated by our state law.  

In the movie “The Rum Diary,” a young American journalist played by Johnny Depp discovers that Puerto Rico in the late 1950s is a sunny and vibrant island that happens to be an American territory, with seemingly limitless economic potential. As I watched the closing credits in a theater 1500 miles away from San Juan, I felt nostalgic and saddened by what the intervening half-century has brought to my native island. Long gone are those heady days in the late ‘50s, when Congress granted Puerto Ricans a measure of self-government and transformed a poor and agrarian economy into an important manufacturing base for U.S. corporations. They have been replaced by skepticism and pessimism among a population facing alarming crime rates and drug related violence, a mass exodus of manufacturing jobs in an economy mired in a recession for more than 5 years, and an unclear picture of where and how Puerto Rico fits politically with the rest of the United States.

In recent days, school children in Alabama have been confronted with questions about who they are based on the color of their skin. At one school, a fourth grader was asked if she is a U.S. citizen. When she replied, “Yes,” she was asked about her parents’ status. Teachers report that children are afraid of being separated from their families.

The terror of immigration enforcement is now in the classrooms in Alabama and is traumatizing the most vulnerable members of our society, our children. Alabama, scarred by a long history of civil rights struggles, has become the first state to legalize racial profiling.

Career politicians, especially Republican presidential candidates, should think about the pervavise fear in Alabama and then answer this question: “Is Alabama Your America?”

They should ask themselves if they would want their children separated from others based on the color of their skin. Do they want their children questioned about their private information? If the child was not born in the U.S. but is here legally, how would you suggest he or she answer? How would they feel if their child left for school in tears, worried that you would not be home at the end of the day because you did not carry your papers with you when you went to buy groceries?

Today we will finally put an end to a discriminatory military policy that was crafted almost two decades ago during a time when we weren't at war with another country, but rather we were bitterly divided – politically and socially – against ourselves.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell began as an inadequate and deeply flawed compromise that attempted to resolve a debate that raged at all levels of our society – in families, communities, and among military and political leaders.  It was a Catch-22.  It allowed gay troops to serve, but only by forcing them to compromise one of the core values they're trained to uphold as members of the military: integrity.

By requiring service members to lie about who they are, DADT became a tool for bigots rather than making it possible for gay troops to serve quietly as intended.  And over the last decade of conflict, it has forced 14,000 service members to leave the military just when we need them most.

I opposed Don't Ask, Don't Tell from the beginning, and I've been proud to fight for its repeal.  But what really brought the policy to an end is the fact that America itself has changed.